Pubdate: Sat, 16 Feb 2002
Source: Herald-Palladium, The (MI)
Copyright: 2002 The Herald-Palladium
Contact:  http://www.heraldpalladium.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1378

DRUG LAWS VARY GREATLY AMONG STATES, REPORT SAYS

WASHINGTON -- A new report released today finds that state statutory drug 
laws vary significantly across the United States, contradicting a 
commonly-held assumption that state drug policies follow federal drug policy.

The report came from a study by a team from Andrews University and other 
organizations that started two years ago.

The university received a three-year contract for about $970,000 from the 
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help assess the impact of state laws and 
environmental conditions on reducing the health and psychosocial 
consequences associated with youth illicit drug use.

According to the university and representatives of the report organization, 
Dr. Duane McBride of Andrews was the principal investigator of the 
ImpacTeen Illicit Drugs Team, which is issuing the report. Curt VanderWaal, 
also of the university, was the project director.

Investigators and experts from MayaTech Corp. and the RAND Research Center 
and the Andrews University team formed The ImpacTeen Illicit Drug Team.

The project is a policy research partnership established to reduce youth 
substance use. It is supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and 
administered by the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The report was to be released this morning at a conference at the National 
Press Club in Washington.

State law matters because the majority of drug offenders are tried in state 
courts.

Drug offenders are subject to very different penalties depending on the 
state in which they are prosecuted, the substance and the offense. For 
instance, from state to state a first-time offender may be subject from one 
year to lifetime imprisonment and $5,000 to $1 million in fines for the 
sale of one ecstasy pill.

The report also shows that, as of Jan. 1, 2000, 24 states and the District 
of Columbia have enacted legislation that allows the use of marijuana for 
medical purposes, despite the federal government's position against it.

The report is titled "Illicit Drug Policies: Selected Laws from the 50 
States." It also includes the District of Columbia.

It documents each state's rating and penalty provisions for selected drugs, 
as well as medical marijuana. It also identifies disparities in federal and 
state controlled substance scheduling.

"This report illustrates that states play an important role in the war on 
drugs. State legislatures have taken varied approaches to addressing the 
drug problem," said Dr. Jamie Chriqui, vice president of the Health Policy 
and Legislative Analysis program at MayaTech and lead author of the report.

"States have a history of drug policy experimentation that has, at times, 
differed from federal policy," said McBride, director of the Institute for 
the Prevention of Addiction at Andrews.

"This report highlights that this tradition continues today."

State governments and the federal government use schedules as a way to 
classify controlled substances.

A drug is scheduled according to how safe it is, its medical use and its 
potential for abuse. A drug's schedule plays a primary role in determining 
punishments for crimes associated with the sale or possession of that drug.

The scheduling of club drugs (a term used to collectively describe a group 
of drugs taken by young people attending all-night parties at raves and 
night clubs) offers a prime example of how state drug policy 
experimentation sometimes differs from federal policy.

The report shows that while drugs like marijuana, cocaine and 
methamphetamine have been rated under the1970 Federal Controlled Substances 
Act, there is considerably less conformity in state consideration of drugs 
like ecstasy and ketamine (another popular club drug). In fact, as of Jan. 
1, 2000, 11 state legislatures had not listed ecstasy as an illicit drug, 
and the majority of state legislatures had not listed ketamine either.

State penalties for violating sale and possession laws vary by substance, 
by the quantity of the substance sold or possessed, and by the type of offense.

This variation is particularly noticeable in the range of penalties for the 
sale and possession of standard retail amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine 
and ecstasy.

For instance, in North Carolina, a drug offender charged with selling 1 
gram of cocaine could be subject to a maximum imprisonment term of one 
year. The same sales offense in Montana could be met with a maximum fine of 
$50,000 and a lifetime sentence.

Similarly, an offender caught possessing 10 grams of methamphetamine in 
Minnesota could be subject to a $500,000 fine and 25 years in Minnesota. 
The same offender in Virginia, however, would face statutory fines of only 
$1,000 and maximum imprisonment of only six months.

On the Net:

www.andrews.edu/BHSC/impacteen-illicitdrugteam.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart